If you are going through a situation in your life that is less than pleasant, or one that you might not choose for yourself, it’s easy to get caught up in asking some pretty terrible questions.
Why me? Why is this happening to me? What did I do wrong? They are often very “me” centered and somewhere in the question is often blame – blaming yourself for doing something wrong, blaming someone else for putting you into this situation, even blaming the universe or things out of your control for why something is happening.
Asking these types of questions puts us into a victim mentally and doesn’t allow us to look at the situation from outside of our own perspective. Allowing ourselves into the victim mentality takes away our power. The good news? You can easily turn this around with one simple technique – asking better questions.
When you allow yourself to ask more empowering questions, you change your energy. And with that newfound energy comes possibility, which opens you up to things you may not have realized before. Asking more empowering questions lets us see things from a broader perspective.
What are some more empowering questions that you can ask? Here’s a few to try:
What can I learn from this? What is this situation trying to teach me?
By asking yourself what you can learn from a situation, you turn it around to find the lessons in the situation, rather than the fault and blame. Often in life, we go through the same lessons over and over again until we finally learn the lesson. Save yourself from going through a similar situation again and ask a more empowering question. Give your energy to the lessons trying to come forth.
How can I move forward from this?
What we focus on expands, so by asking how you can move forward, you open yourself up to possibilities and your energy moves to a future scenario where you have moved past whatever you are going through instead of feeling stuck where you are right now. If you listen and observe, new ideas that you previously hadn’t thought of may emerge. Open yourself up to the possibilities.
Who do I know that has been through something similar that I might be able to talk with about this or learn from?
This is a great question as someone who has gone through a similar experience could provide insights into how they got through it or empathize with you which is often helpful as well. If you don’t personally know someone who has been in a similar situation, look for books and videos of those who’ve been through it and soak up their insights.
Who can I help?
Give meaning to your experience by giving back. Perhaps right now you aren’t in a position to give advice to someone going through a similar situation. But, whenever we give back, it helps us to learn and grow and often feel better too. If you can find meaning where you are right now, it will help you to go forth and help others in the future.
Choose to get out of your own head and move forward into a broader perspective by asking better questions. You’ll not only empower yourself to see things from a different angle, you’ll open yourself up to possibilities that you couldn’t see before. Think of your own better questions and apply them to your situation. You have the power inside to get through anything; use simple tools like this to move you past anywhere that you don’t want to be.